петак, 23. новембар 2012.

Koliko je opasna genetski modifikovana hrana ?

Last month, a group of Australian scientists published a warning to the
citizens of the country and of the world who collectively gobble up some
$34 billion annually of its agricultural exports. The warning concerned
the safety of a new type of wheat.

As Australia's number-one export, a $6-billion annual industry, and the
most-consumed grain locally, wheat is of the utmost importance to the
country. A serious safety risk from wheat – a mad wheat disease of sorts – would have disastrous effects for the country and for its customers.

Which is why the alarm bells are being rung over a new variety of wheat
being ushered toward production by the Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) of Australia. In a sense, the
crop is little different than the wide variety of modern genetically
modified foods. A sequence of the plant's genes has been turned off to
change the wheat's natural behavior a bit, to make it more commercially
viable (hardier, higher yielding, slower decaying, etc.).Franken-Wheat?

What's really different this time – and what has Professor Jack
Heinemann of the University of Canterbury, NZ, and Associate Professor
Judy Carman, a biochemist at Flinders University in Australia, holding
press conferences to garner attention to the subject – is the technique
employed to effectuate the genetic change. It doesn't modify the genes
of the wheat plants in question; instead, a specialized gene blocker
interferes with the natural action of the genes. ... CONTINUE READING ON :